


Samwise the Observant

by Eshli



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works, The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-29
Updated: 2012-12-29
Packaged: 2017-11-22 20:34:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/614065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eshli/pseuds/Eshli
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Samwise Gamgee had been serving the Bagginses for a long while. He can honestly say that there's been a few times where he's poked his nose where it doesn't entirely belong but when your Master is as fascinating as Bilbo Baggins is, he feels like he can't be blamed. After all, it's not as if every Hobbit has mysterious dwarves visiting them throughout the year.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Samwise the Observant

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place roughly around 10-15 years after Bilbo's return to the Shire. I'm a little atrocious at math and figuring timelines but let's just say I didn't make any atrocious errors in configuring times and ages and say Sam's a young little lad throughout most of this and Bilbo's a little past middle-aged by now but not ungracefully or drastically so. 
> 
> That sounds about right though. Okay. Enjoy. Apologies for any huge errors.

 

Sam was a very quiet Hobbit, he was, and he liked to think himself none too nosey. At least of all the other Hobbits of the Shire, he was hardly the Hobbit that stuck out as the most probing. It was just by chance that he was in the right spot on more than one occasion to hear and observe things that might not have exactly been within his interest to hear or observe to begin with.

 

He was a good Hobbit though with only the best of intention. Even as a little one following around after his good old father, he’d pick up on things a whole lot quicker than others might of. His father once had told him that his ears were too big for his own head, though Sam wasn’t too sure what that had ever meant.

 

By the time he’d started to work in the beautiful garden of Bag End, he’d started to think he understood what his father had been getting at all those times ago.

 

He liked Bilbo Baggins. There wasn’t a Hobbit in the Shire who didn’t think he was odd but there were both positive and negative sides to that perspective and Sam had always been on the exceedingly more favorable side. He liked all of his stories and he had always been intrigued by the strange little Hobbit who’d left the Shire roughly ten or so years ago.

 

Perhaps it was the way that he walked with a confidence no other Hobbit knew how to walk with or maybe it was the way that he was content to sit for hours on end and stare at the sky without growing restless or hungry. Sam couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was exactly but what he did know was that the adventures Bilbo Baggins had had changed him for good. They had changed him from the respectable Hobbit he’d once been into something far more wise and far more honorable, in Sam’s mind, and though Bilbo had been more than delighted to tell Sam, Frodo, and a few other of the Hobbit children who were curious enough to listen, many a story of his adventures, Sam had always felt he’d left things out.

 

Bilbo had never picked up a wife. He’d never seemed even remotely interested. Sam never could figure it out, really, as Bilbo was a fair looking Hobbit with a secure wealth and the beautiful foundation of Bag End. He was, despite his abnormalities, quite the catch of a Hobbit, Sam would think, and yet despite the few interested Hobbit-lasses, he didn’t seem to bat an eye, even when the prettier ones were hankering for his attention.

 

One day, Sam thought that maybe he’d put together why. Actually, it was one day that had started many days in which Sam collectively put it all together. But it was on this particular day that everything suddenly started to become much more glaringly obvious.

 

It started with an unexpected visitor.

 

It was late in the evening and Bilbo’s windows were opened up to let in the cool summer air. Sam was passing by quite coincidentally when he heard a booming laughter that certainly had not belonged to Mr. Baggins. It was far deeper and rougher and completely foreign to Sam.

 

If Sam had been caught, he would have sworn on his hairy feet that he’d only been concerned for Bilbo’s safety that night, but to his luck, no one else was out for an evening stroll, leaving him to his devices.

 

He crouched down low and slipped up into the garden over the hill. He kept squatted down until he was nearing one of the opened windows. He dared not peer up into the hole just quite yet but instead fixed himself just below.

 

Two voices, one distinctly Bilbo and the other that deeper voice, were mingling together in conversation. The atmosphere was warm and Sam could smell food that he could only dream the tastes of. Bilbo was a fine cook, he had known that much, but he couldn’t recall the last time he’d ever smelled something quite so delicious in his life. He could identify only four of the herbs he smelled and there were at least three others that remained a mystery to him, even to this day.

 

The voices gradually melted into a silence and feeling all the more curious, Sam poked his head up and over the window ledge to risk a look into the home of Bilbo Baggins.

 

At first, he truly wasn’t sure what he was looking at.

 

There was a short and stout man-like creature, later of which Sam would realize was a dwarf, who had a handsome face and black hair and an elegantly combed out beard. Standing in front of the dwarf and with his back to Sam was Bilbo.

 

The dwarf had his hands on either side of Bilbo’s face and the look that he was giving the Hobbit was something entirely precious, something that suggested that this Hobbit was the finest jewel to be found in all of Middle-earth. Though if you were to ask the dwarf, he’d have cleverly stated that Master Bilbo Baggins was much more of a sword; elegantly lethal with a sobering demand for respect.   

 

Sam, foolishly at the time, concluded that this must be a very dear friend of Bilbo’s that he’d made on his adventures.

 

Sam, however, was not naïve enough to continue thinking that when the dwarf leaned in and bestowed upon Bilbo a kiss that was earth-shatteringly intimate. So much so that even the curious Samwise felt his ears turn pink and duck down and out of sight as though he’d been caught. He had felt flustered the entire way back home.

 

As it turned out, Bilbo Baggins wasn’t as lonely as Sam had initially thought.

 

 

 

 

 

He’d wished he hadn’t seen anything at all. It was hardly the fact of the matter that disturbed Sam but now he was so full of questions but questions he couldn’t just ask without revealing himself to Bilbo that he’d been spying on the Hobbit.

 

The hardest part of all was walking to Bag End the following morning to start his duties and seeing Bilbo with the dwarf sitting out front of his home. Bilbo was smoking his pipe and he looked roughly fifteen years younger _and_ happier than Sam had ever once seen him. His toes were curled and his eyes were creased as a permanent smile resided on his face.

 

The dwarf, who Sam didn’t even need to know personally to know typically had a grim expression, was smiling. It was far softer and more subdued but it was genuine regardless and most of all fond as he stared down at the Hobbit he sat beside.

 

Sam felt a strange mixture of quiet joy at the sight of Bilbo so at ease and a walloping flop in his gut that tickled up at him and he didn’t really know how to explain _that._ Was it giddiness? Yes, he thought, it must’ve been. He’d never seen such raw romance before and suddenly _that_ story became a lot more interesting than the one about the dragon.

 

“Hello, Sam!” Bilbo called from where he sat, lowering his pipe to offer Sam a polite but casual nod. Sam returned it with a smile that felt forced and sincere altogether at the same time.

 

“Good mornin’, Mr. Baggins. How are ye this morning? See you’ve got yourself some company,” Sam said good-naturedly in that way of his, feeling more comfortable the more he talked and even offered the stranger a jubilant smile of his.

 

“That I do,” Bilbo said, smiling even wider before he gestured to the dwarf beside him, “This is Thorin Oakenshield. Dwarf king of Erebor.”

 

Sam had to double-take. _This_ was the Thorin Bilbo had spoken of? The mighty dwarf king who’d shown such bravery and honorable justice that it’d left Sam dreaming of brilliant sword fights among small men who were so much more than their meager height and hefty beards.

 

“My goodness!” Sam squeaked, instantly bowing down so low that his nose nearly bumped into the earth, “My goodness me, hello! It is an honor. Oh it is, Bilbo has told me so much of you and your company.” He righted himself at once, feeling flustered yet again but this time for an entirely different reason. A king! He was standing before a king!

 

And now that he was looking at Thorin, he truly did look the part. He was handsome, yes, but it was the air in which surrounded him. It demanded respect and loyalty. It made Sam want to still and listen to whatever it was Thorin had to say.  His clothes, though modest in color and decoration, were made out of obviously carefully and skillfully put together metals and leathers. Sam was in awe.

 

Then he became flabbergasted. Bilbo, Bilbo Baggins, little Mad Baggins had himself a king for a fancy, a lover! Think of that, Samwise, and he nearly fainted right there on the spot. He would have too if he hadn’t grasped the gate to Bag End.

 

“I hope he has painted me a fine picture in your mind,” Thorin said with a gravely amused look sent to Bilbo, who only shifted in his seat and looked a touch too proud for his own good.

 

“You do a beautiful job of tending to Bilbo’s garden,” Thorin said slowly, his eyes roaming over to the garden in question.

 

“Thank you,” Sam said, trying to blindly accept that a _king_ was complimenting his handiwork. He might’ve puffed his chest out some. At that, he realized that he wasn’t to dawdle and swoon over the king. It was hardly his place.

 

“How long are you staying, Master Oakenshield?” Sam asked, albeit awkwardly. He really knew nothing of addressing kings and royalties. He must not have done too bad because Thorin didn’t look remotely offended.

 

“For a day or two longer,” Thorin said, a bit regrettably, Sam noted, “I must return to my Kingdom. There are many things to be done but I have not seen Bilbo in some time. I thought it was long over-do that I come see him.”

 

Thorin said this all to Sam but his eyes were entirely on Bilbo, who was looking at his feet and who had the decency to look a little embarrassed. Bilbo cleared his throat suddenly, puffing at his pipe before he peered up at Sam.

 

“I think that the rose bush out by my bedroom window is starting to wilt a little,” Bilbo said in an off-handed sort of way, polite criticism that was more of a polite nudge to kindly leave them alone. Sam knew it was hardly his place to linger and ogle his Master and his Master’s….He wondered, suddenly, if Bilbo had royal standing in the Kingdom! No, Sam thought, he couldn't. Could he?

 

Yet as Sam went to tend to the roses, which weren’t wilted at all, he couldn’t help but fantasize about Bilbo with a crown upon his head and walking after Thorin in fine clothing and sitting before a council of elven folk who paid him tribute and oh! The crowds of dwarves cheering for him and throwing petals and praising him for helping win back the mountain and things of which had Sam grinning dopily, his daydreams of worlds beyond his own taking over. One day, he thought, he’d have an adventure of his own! 

 

 

 

 

 

After Thorin Oakenshield left, Sam picked up far more on Bilbo’s subtle hints as to why he turned away the ladies of the Shire. Every now and then, he’d catch Bilbo with a far-off look and a certain expression that Sam thought reminded him of a lass he once knew who’d stare off like that whenever she thought about the gentlehobbit she had planned to marry.

 

He saw the Hobbit on the days in which Sam imagined were lonelier than others. Days of which Bilbo would look so sad and quiet in a way where even Frodo murmured it was best for his Uncle to be left alone. He was, on these days, apparently inconsolable.

 

Then he’d be cheery again and plucking flowers from the garden to plop them into vases around the house. He’d write long letters that were sent out to no known address in the Shire and he’d receive letters weeks later that’d bring such sheer happiness to his face that Sam would just watch him reading the letters while leaning on his shovel, wondering what they could possibly say.

 

He wondered how they had gotten there. He wondered if he’d ever find that. Hobbits were a simple folk. They seemed to love with not only the size of their feet but with the convenience as well. They weren’t exactly known to be the sort to have inspiring romances and heavy-hearted love stories. Yet Bilbo was the exception, as he always was, and Sam was given something to hold onto for himself. He wanted that joy.

 

He noticed more often that it was not years and years that Bilbo and Thorin would go without seeing one another. It was months at a time when the dwarf would spontaneously show up. Oftentimes he’d do so in the night but Sam would always see the evidence of it later.

 

Things like small but beautiful gifts so carefully chosen and designed for Bilbo that were left in the crooks and crannies of Bag End. Things like a piece of clothing here or there. The occasional times that Sam heard the sounds of their love making when he tended to the garden in the broad daylight, sounds that were so muted and sweet that Sam was more awed than he was disturbed, and he’d always leave to have his lunch so not to interrupt. Did normal Hobbit-folk even know to do _that_ so imploringly and bold? Sam didn’t think so. He wondered what it must’ve been like, to be so foolishly and devotedly in love, to want one another with everything possible to want with.

 

It wasn’t until quite a long while later, later when Bilbo’s hair had turned white and thin and his face old and dried, later when a year down the line Bilbo would retire from the Shire for his last adventure and Sam and Frodo would begin on their first, that Sam finally asked Bilbo about Thorin Oakenshield.

 

He’d grown comfortable with the Bagginses. They were a good folk who’d treated him and his family well and he adored Frodo Baggins in a fiercely devoted way that had him trailing after the finer Hobbit on more than one occasion. He was both a companion and a Master, the best of both that Sam could’ve ever hoped for, and he’d all the respect in the world for him.

 

But Bilbo was something to be treated with as though handling a delicate treasure of which had been long since hidden. The night he’d asked was a fall night, windy and cold, Bilbo had invited Sam in for a nice hot cup of ale.

 

Frodo was in another part of the underground mansion, presumably retiring for the evening, while Sam and Bilbo drank around his fire in content silence.

 

“Bilbo,” Sam ventured, feeling braver now that he was older, “I have a question I’d like to ask, if that is all right by you.”

 

“I should think that’ll be just fine, Sam, depending on whether or not I want to answer your question,” Bilbo said in his strange way of his but Sam didn’t let it deter him any.

 

“When I was very young, I saw something once when I was walking by your hole one night. Afterwards, I started to notice a lot of other somethings that built onto that initial something and I’ve always wondered about it,” Sam said, quite vaguely, and he decided to clarify a little, “I truly do wonder about it. You’ve told me all of your adventures, Bilbo, about the orcs and the eagles, and you know I love them, you know I do, I do, but there’s one adventure you’ve seemed to misplace.”

 

“Ah, is that right?” Bilbo asked and nothing in his voice or on his face gave away whether or not he knew what Sam was implying. Instead, Bilbo took another sip of his ale.

 

“If it’s not too much, I’d rather like to know about…Thorin,” Sam said, choosing his words carefully but his tone even more so.

 

Bilbo’s old eyes found Sam’s and he didn’t look nervous or angry or even so much as upset. Instead, he looked faintly amused, his mouth twitching up at the corner.

 

“Have I been so obvious?” Bilbo asked, his shoulders trembling in an unheard laugh.

 

Sam smiled weakly but answered not. Bilbo was going to tell him the one thing he’d always wanted to hear.

 

“Thorin is my king,” Bilbo said, his tone surprisingly firm to Sam, and for a moment, it had none of the wavering that old age had given it, but sounded like the youthful tone that had once instructed Sam how exactly he liked his potatoes to be kept, “And I would follow him to death and back again. When I found the Heart of the Mountain, my eyes were to be deceived, for it was not a stone that took that shape within me, but he.”

 

Bilbo sighed heavily, setting his ale aside. He removed his feet from the rest he’d had them on and put his hands upon his knees. He looked seriously at Sam then and Sam decided to put his ale down as well. This meant a lot to Bilbo. It was no time to belittle him with the importance of silly drinks.

 

“I’d never met anyone so powerful and demanding of respect in my life. When I first joined his company, I’d wanted to impress him but…Of course, I didn’t. I was a Hobbit running from home who knew nothing about sword fighting or dragons or anything worth knowing about on that long, horrible, wonderful road. I was of no worth to him and I wanted to be. It was quite simple at first. He was my leader and I wanted him to see me as useful. That was all. But then when I warranted his respect and he looked at me with such a look upon his face…And then he embraced me. It was as if I had breathed fresh air for the first time in my life,” Bilbo recalled, his eyes distant and dull but there was a gleam there that Sam had picked up on only ever being there because of Thorin.

 

“I became so loyal to him afterward. I served him. I came when he called and did as he told. But I’ll admit,” Bilbo said, chuckling suddenly, “I had my moments of defiance where I would absolutely not take his demands. He’d seize me up all right and shake me nice and good until I was properly dizzy. Things just happened, I suppose. I’d been by his side for so long that we grew to look at each other differently and notice each other differently. He’d tend to my intimate needs as I would his. We grew together in another way and….”

 

Bilbo pressed his lips together and sank back into his chair, his eyes shutting and a smile overtaking his features. He sighed wholly and his body sank against the seat, his entire posture relaxed.

 

“We fell in love. We battled alongside one another in love and we fought in love and we lost in love. I learned and grew and failed and succeeded with him by my side and I saw in him what I had never known I’d ever want before and for some miraculous reason of which took me about five years to just accept, he loved me as well.”

 

A silence carried out between the two Hobbits. One silent of his own memories and the other of thought and wonder. The story lacked the details that Bilbo’s other stories had had yet at the same time, it was much more satisfying than any story of mountains could have ever been. Bilbo had kept the details of which he’d never be able to explain to anyone to himself. You didn’t just simply explain falling in love to someone. It happened in progression and during small moments. It was a collection of everything pulled together into one final picture. It was a dance filled with minor steps that flowed together into one entire piece and there was nothing that anyone could do to describe their own love life except for the short statements that never felt big enough for what they truly felt.

 

And with that, Bilbo stood up from his chair, his old body crooked and marred by time, and he picked up his ale.

 

“Well Sam, it’s about the time to go to bed, I think. You stay and finish up your ale. My body’s tired, you see,” Bilbo mumbled, walking away from the fire, but Sam stopped him.

 

“Mr. Baggins,” he said, “I have just one more question.”  


 

Bilbo didn’t respond, but he turned and looked at Sam expectantly.

 

“Why didn’t you go and live with him? In his Kingdom?”

 

At that, Bilbo grinned.

 

“I’m a Hobbit of the Shire, Sam. I had my own responsibilities to tend to and while my real home will forever be with Thorin, he had an entire Kingdom to rebuild. He needed to focus and he wanted me here where I’d be safe and live comfortably. We see each other often. A year has never gone by without him and he takes care of me as if I were living with him. Then little Frodo came along and I had no choice but to keep him safe and well,” Bilbo said, without even a hint of resentment, and then began to walk away yet again.

 

Only he paused just as he was about to leave the room. He looked towards the nearest window,  taking a deep breath before he smiled in a way Sam could only think of as nostalgic.

 

“I think,” Bilbo started, “That I’ll take one last adventure very soon. It’s time to rejoin my king.”

 

As Bilbo left, Sam realized that when Bilbo left, he intended it to be for good. His time in the Shire had come to an end. Frodo was old enough now, mature and responsible enough to take up his heir, and Bilbo could go where he’d always truly felt he should be.

 

And to that, Sam wished him the best of luck.

 

 


End file.
